Bracknell, Berkshire-based Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems Ltd announced a net profit of 209,000 for the financial year ending September 30 1993. Turnover was up 14% to 147.7m from 125m the previous year and the company said its revenue has grown by 28% over the last two years. Richard Bearpark, managing director, said that this was in line with the firm’s three year business plan of both becoming profitable and growing the UK company within three years of its inception in October 1990. Greater success in the UK than expected has enabled the company to re-invest its returns back into the company. Siemens’ order input has also increased by 22% to 159m from 130m in 1992, and productivity per employee has improved by 42% over the past two years. During the year it restructured into seven main business units in line with the policy of its parent company in Germany, in an effort to target niche markets more effectively. In its government sector orders won include those from the Department of Social Security on a single terminal access project using RSM middleware to integrate Siemens, ICL Plc, and IBM Corp systems and with the Home Office for work on the national criminal records and fingerprints system. This government sector contributed around 50m or 30% to 35% of turnover during the year and is one of the fastest-growing sectors. The retail sector achieved higher revenue than target, also at 30% to 35% of turnover. Siemens has 25 partners in this business sector. Recent projects included the provision of a point-of-sale network for Selfridges in London consisting of 430 Beetle terminals along with contracts from retail companies such as Superdrug and Tesco. The finance unit, providing 15% to 20% of revenue, recently won a contract with the Nationwide Building Society to help create the Touchlink branch automation service in Aylesbury, which offers a range of self-service facilities such as cheque printing and passbook updating. For the future Siemens Nixdorf UK’s target now is to double the company’s size over the next three to five years to 300m turnover. It is currently discussing external partnerships in the area of facilities management and other services, seeing its strength of appeal to partners being in mid-range systems, personal computers and networking.
